It is good sometimes to think things through. There are people who do that. Scientists and scholars spend a lot of time at it. The rest of us may do so only occasionally. Some rarely. Some don’t.

Thinking things through successfully requires reliable data to work from. We have a problem in that regard. In some cases it is not accidental. In some cases the structure of our systems permits tinkering. Studies show that an ever increasing number of people abandon books, newspapers and magazines and depend on television for their input. In this country television is paid for by people with their own axe to grind. Even public television is showing evidence of tampering by the present administration.

A case in point is the documentary “Crude” (www.abc.net.au/science/crude/) shown a few days ago on Australian television It was produced by the American Broadcasting Corporation. Much of the production was done in the United States or Great Britain.

The question is: Why must one go to Australia to see it? One can only speculate. I wonder about auto makers, prime supporters of commercial television. American firms are struggling now. The impact of “Crude” might seem unhelpful to their cause.

As I said in my last submission, an international monitoring agency is said to have found the rate of increase of carbon dioxide concentrations was one percent in 1990 but three percent in 2006. The documentary “Crude” says that anoxia appears to occur at four to five times pre-industrial carbon dioxide levels. Four times is two doublings. I did the arithmetic. The doubling time at three percent is 24 years. A pair of doublings can occur during the lifetime of a middle aged person. Anoxia in geologic history is blamed for mass extinctions. Anoxic events and carbon dioxide levels have been tied together.

Is this worthy of mention? Have you heard anything about it on television? Or newspapers?

Let me go on just a bit more before addressing the main business of the day. Peak oil was introduced almost exactly fifty years ago by Marion King Hubbert, who was dismissed initially as a kook. His theory was based on the behavior of species. He was a petroleum geologist. He was supposed to base his conclusions on geology, not the behavior of species.

Hubbert was correct. Peak oil production in the U.S. occurred when Hubbert said it would. The behavior of species ruled. We are looking at the arrival of the peak of world oil production. Does the television audience believe that? They do not. Climate change might destroy the human race. Does the television audience believe that? If the two factoids I referred to are correct, anoxia could occur in the lifetime of the television audience – or more accurately at the termination of their existence. Is this proper material for television? Paris Hilton, O.J. Simpson, Monica Lewinski – that’s appropriate. Oh, I forgot “American Idol.”

If the two factoids are correct and the American public is unaware of them and the federal government actively suppresses that information can anything be done?

I am a veteran of the environmental wars of the 1970s. We were sponsored by neither government or television The movement was ignited by Rachael Carson’s “Silent Spring”. We didn’t know at the time but from the moment the requirement of Environmental Impact Statements before development became law we had won. In 2006 Al Gore launched “An Inconvenient Truth”. Ignition has occurred. Martin Luther King lighted a movement. The effects of the siege at Wounded Knee are awe inspiring.

In those historic cases the push came not from above but from below, as it will this time. What must we do to survive peak oil and avoid the anoxic event? In both cases we are looking at fossil fuel. It is most spectacularly useful. As soon as we figured out how to get it and what to do with it we became hopelessly addicted to it. In that we are unique from other species – with them it is only food. In our case it is fossil fuel (we gotta eat but it’s so easy in this country we tend to forget how dependent we are and how delicate that system is.) A small percentage of fossil fuel is required to produce the petrochemicals necessary for the production of enough food to support our present population. But most of the stuff is simply burned. In internal combustion engines, in power plants to produce electricity, in furnaces stoves or water heaters.

Can we break the pattern that controls the behavior of species and voluntarily reduce our demand? We’re smart enough to do it – as a species if not as individuals. We have alternate technologies that can serve – with the possible exception of petrochemicals.

With what can we replace fossil fuel to feed our insatiable desires? Sunlight. All the energy released daily from all of our consumption of fossil fuel is contained in one percent of the energy that falls upon the earth from the sun. Can it move us, warm us, provide light and power our TVs and computers? Yes. Off-the-shelf stuff.

If we build the tiered track system and power it with photovoltaics lining the right of way we can transport goods and people more than adequately. Architects are all but jumping up and down and waving their arms to attract our attention. They’ll give you all the structural space you want, powered and conditioned exclusively by the sun if you’ll just give them the chance. Those two effects all by themselves turn peak oil into a pussy cat and defang and declaw the climate change monster.

If we start right now, this very instant, how long will it take? I’m scarcely in a position to say, but my instincts tell me that it would probably require two or three decades to build that rail system. First planners have to sit down and think about how they’re going to do it. Maybe we could ask them to please sit down and think about it. Right now maybe? Peak oil may have arrived and/or an interruption of the flow of foreign supplies threatens to happen at any moment. The decline predicates approximately a 2.6 percent loss of petroleum production each and every year after the peak. Four years from right now, this instant, there could well be 10 percent less oil available at any price. In ten years, twenty years???? So how long before we get started? From the standpoint of peak oil, switch to the renewable source – sunlight – or do without the transport of goods and people. From the standpoint of climate change have you any idea of what an anoxic event smells like?

How much time remains before climate change becomes deadly? If quadrupling carbon dioxide levels produces an anoxic event which we probably can’t survive that, how long? If doubling is really only 24 years, and we’re coming right along on the first doubling, how long, Lord, how long? Increased carbon dioxide levels result from releasing carbon into the atmosphere when we burn fossil fuels – the fuel of the world, and the nature of species says we can’t stop.

But we must. We must stop burning fossil fuel. Right now. When I say burning I mean stop producing oil from tar sands because that will be burnt in the engines of vehicles and that will kill us. Don’t liquify coal to be consumed in automotive engines. Don’t! Stop! If you have any thought of successful carbon sequestration look at that documentary which gives you an effective graphic of the size of the problem and reflect upon it. You’re going to corral that much carbon and store it safely away? That’s already been done. It is nicely stored underground just as it is and it would be presumptuous to suppose we can do as good a job. It just ain’t going to happen.

If you actually listen to your local politicians they will tell you that in fact what they hear from people is reflected in what they do in office. Civil rights, environment, Native American rights – those by demand became the law of the land. Energy consumption patterns need to be determined by we the people.

It’s doable. You and I must inform our leaders. In far too many cases they hold office because powerful corporations support their political efforts. Nothing new there. To a greater or lesser degree wealth has translated to power in all societies throughout history. But people can rise up and shout the money down. We elect our officials. Trust me, they do pay attention to what we’re saying.

The only thing money can’t quite do in this country is to entirely impede the flow of the kind of information it doesn’t like. Observe the attempts of the federal government to silence scientists or anyone with information the public should know about. It’s awfully hard to entirely shush honest people who know what their talking about

We the people need to listen to those who know. We the people need to speak to those who legislate and govern. We must stop burning hydrocarbons. We must do that right now.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 6th, 2007 at 6:58 am and is filed under Energy Future, Environment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.